THSCC Forums

I learned driving the Minis the way to keep up the revs/be fast is left foot brake to rotate while holding all/part throttle. I REALLY have to learn to left foot brake by habit.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

I bet Mary E doesn't LFB and she's plenty fast. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

She needs to give lessons to #2-5 in HSL at Topeka then.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

Chuck said, "I REALLY have to learn to left foot brake by habit."


Chuck and others considering going to left foot braking, while this sounds good in theory, it's a lot harder to actually go faster than your normal right foot braking than you think...and is something you may want to give careful consideration to. I have no doubt that left foot braking (if done correctly) in the Mini and most other cars is going to be a bit faster. Unfortunately, I believe it's a vast minority of drivers who can actually drive faster while left foot braking. Great drivers like G.H., Chiles, Matthew Braun, and scores of others are awesome left foot brakers, but they also get beat by right footers pretty regularly. Tim Aro, Sam Strano, and Telehowski are two examples of exceptional drivers who still use their right foot.

As an example for anyone considering the change, I truly consider myself to be of average talent as a driver...I used my left foot on the street since I was 19 and during my first 8 years of autocross. I had decent success in the state and nationally as a left footer. Upon the advice of Brian Priebe I gave it up in the middle of the 2002 season and went to right footing in the Spyder, due to the unique handling traits of mid-engine cars. I *immediately* went faster that season, won the Midwest Divisonals (i.e., Nationals warm-up in Topeka) and then got my first trophy at Nationals. The following season I got two national wins, some other nice wins and seconds and was the only person to challenge Telehowski all season. Now, I'm back to being a hack, but I attribute the drammatic improvement in my performance back then to using the right foot.

I have no doubt that there people in the club who will actually go faster if they try left footing and stick with it. I also have no doubt that there will be folks who think left footing is a "silver bullet" that's going to chop a bunch or even a little time off of their average run - many of those drivers will end up disappointed.

Most folks will benefit more from focusing on improving their fundamentals than changing to LFB. The problems a lot of left footers have is braking too much and too abruptly. Coincidentally, those were my biggest flaws as well. The right foot gave me better pedal feel and made it easier for my simple brain to say, "get off the damn brake and carry some energy in the corner." Also, having the left foot on the dead pedal gave me a more stable platform for feeling the car and providing the car with throttle and steering inputs. G.H. and I were talking one day at a local test and tune in Peru and I commented that I noticed the less I used the brakes the faster I went, in general, this was a concept we agreed upon.

This is just one person's perspective. My main purpose in commenting is to reassure drivers who RFB that it's OK. The grass always seems greener on the other side, even though that's not always the case. If you're getting beat or beaten badly it's probably not becuase of the appendage you choose to brake with. Once again, left footing is great if you either 1) have the talent to do it correctly, or 2) are willing to work at it for a long time. If you're interested in trying LFB, definitely give it a try for a few events, but remember it's not something you learn to do over a weekend and will likely take a lot of work to actually see improvements.

Remember that a good RFB will beat a mediorce or poor LFB every day. I have no doubt that I'll end up in a car again that will benefit from me LFB'ing, but it's a decsion I'll have to think about a lot.

It would be interesting to hear G.H.'s perspective on the topic since he's one of the best brakers (either foot) that I've seen or ridden with.

As far as ME giving lessons to 2-5 in HSL, I'm sure she could and they'd all be faster afterwards...as she has also probably instructed and helped just about every driver in THSCC get faster, myself included, and I believe this year the #1 HSL driver at Nats as well We really are lucky to have some many talented and helpful folks in this club.

Eric

If you look at the National level results over the past 3 years, the people 2-5 in HSL totaled about 8 -10 National events among them. Not a very good group to use as a sample set.

[snip] Edited by Scott Johnson [/snip]

- AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

Come on Eric, Tim's not a big guy, but he counts for at least half a person, so it should be 2.5 examples of RFB drivers.

Scott

Well, Sammy is about one and half people

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

Jim beat me to it

I can only tell you that at the Peru T&T when I started LFB the HS Mini I picked up a full second. Once I asked Priebe what he does, and he said he does both depending on where it is on course, now THERE's concentration...
Not all cars react well to LFB, the Mini seems to like it very much.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

Chuck, I wasn't questioning whether you went faster or not in the Mini. Your post simply promted me to share some thoughts on the matter since it's a common point of conversation and I didn't want everyone to think that LFB is the "ticket" for everyone to go faster. I simply feel that most people will likely go slower if they LFB, even though LFB has the potential to go faster.

Hopefully you're a natural at LFB and that will translate to all cars you drive. So, it'll be interesting to get your feedback on how it works for you in the Miata, since that is also a car that responds well to proper LFB. I sincerely wish everyone good luck when they try it b/c it it generally requires a long-term commitment for those who truly want to go faster and even after years of practice lots of folks won't be any faster. I'm glad I did it for a long-time, thus its something in my toolbox that I can pull out if necessary.

Eric

MUST....RESIST....URGE....

I mean, this is taking some serious self restraint. Epic proportions comes to mind.


--Donnie

I generally only use LFB'ing if I feel the situation calls for it. In the case of auto-x'ing, that is almost never. About the only exception for me is to try and keep a turbo car spooled if negotiating a slow/off-boost turn.

I noticed a bunch of the hot-shoe FWD drivers LFB'ing earlier in the year and asked a few of them about it. The common theme seemed to be it helps quicken the application of throttle if the car gets out of shape which, in turn, settles the car down.

Ultimately, I think this really depends on your car setup and overall driving style not related to your braking foot. Given that, you can be equally fast with either style. It may be if you hop in somebody else's car which is setup for them, your style may require an adjustment which makes LFB'ing quicker in *that* situation. That certainly isn't universal and there are other adjustments that could be made which equalize the effectiveness of either "footedness". Hmmm New

Jim

As an intermediate/advanced student, you should be coming to this school with a list of objectives you'd like to accomplish. For myself, I have the following things I'd like to focus on.

1. Confirm I am taking turns like sweepers and offsets properly. I have a feeling I could should be getting on the gas sooner. Maybe even braking less. I'm not experiencing any rotation on these kinds of manuevers. Is it the car or the way I drive it(probably yours truly)?

2. Learn how to turn the car with pedal input, especially with the brake pedal.

3. Verify my turnaround speeds. Are they too slow? Again, there's probably more opportunity to get on the gas sooner. How much rear tire break away accelerating out of a tight corner is too much (I'm thinking some is good up to a certain point.)?

4. Be more aggressive, but not so out of control that it costs me time. When you ask a faster driver what you need to do to go faster, the first thing they ask you is are you scaring yourself on the run? They say if you don't have to save the car a few times, you're not going fast enough. Whenever, I pick up my aggression factor, I go too far above the bar and loose too much control. I guess what I need to do is compact the "gray zone". Instead of trying to run at 115%, I need to run at 103% (and get away with it). I seem to have a hard time finding 103% without exceeding it.

Having done a minimal amount of autocrossing for the most part of the previous 2 years, my focus for this season has been to look ahead, break, turn and get on the gas early. I'm pretty satisfied with what I've accomplished this season.

What I'd like come away with from this school are new skills and cleaned up current ones that will have me well on the road to being a consistent top 20 PAXer.

What objectives do you other "students" have?

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“I feel safer on a racetrack than I do on Houston's freeways.” - A.J. Foyt

Kevin Butler
Mobetta Autosport Spec E30 #612
2003 C5 Z06 Corvette
AFR Miata, SM2 61, '93 w/200 SC'd RWHP - soon to be resurrected
Waaaay too many other projects....

Mike Whitney explained it to me as constantly going between 9/10ths and 11/10ths and doing damage control in between. Yes, I know everyones definition of driving at 90% and 110% is different, but I think you get the picture. I think the only way you ever truly zero in on 10/10ths is to first find were 10/10ths is (by stepping over it), learning from it, and the next time don't step over the line as much (thus, less damage control is required). Everytime I think I'm getting close to crossing the 10/10ths line, I let Mike drive my car. When we get through and his run is 2 to 3 seconds faster than mine, I remind myself of just how big a whimp I am and then push myself to improve that much harder.

As for goals at the school on Sat, most of mine line up exactly with yours. I really want to learn more about rotating the car (especially in 180 turnarounds and sweepers). In addition, I plan on doing the following:

1 - Using Chuck Frank's advise and putting a tape line across my windshield to force myself to look ahead.

2 - Talk more with Chuck Frank regarding memorizing the course.

3 - Walk the course with Jim P to tell him what's going through my mind during course walks, and better understand his method for analyzing a course.

I'm really looking forward to the school. I soak that stuff up like a sponge!!

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Rob Harvey
919-697-5485
1997 BMW M3
1992 Acura Integra (Simon)

Brakes? Why do you need to use the brakes on a miata. Getting out of the WRX into the miata I feel like I never use the brakes.

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2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles